However, WMCTV Action News5 reporter Lindsey Brown has since reported of an apparent truce between the Tennessee law official and geocachers worldwide. “Inspector Ray Garcia today spoke with a spokesperson from Geocachers.com [sic] and said his department wouldn’t be the group to make a decision about removing the caches.”

That’s a relief to players like Ernie Cantu of Wichita, Kansas; one of many irked at Garcia after he revealed the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency was considering the removal of all geocaches the Fayette County wildlife management area near LaGrangeto prevent others from getting lost.

“I heard about that and I said that’s just not right,” Cantu told Brown. “The reasoning behind that has nothing, it won’t solve why these people got lost.”

Garcia, however, is protesting his innocence. “We have not removed the sites. We were just relaying the information as it was told to us.”

The inspector has been on the defensive since his comments were broadcast by local TV channel WREG Memphis last Monday. He had no idea he was dealing with such a tight-knit and vocal community – until the phone calls, emails and message board comments began.

Apparently what he meant to say was that it’s unwise to go into the woods at night.

Brown was unable to contact the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency for comment but said the cachers she interviewed planned to keep championing their cause.

TeamElliottFamily

How hard is it to drop a few waypoints along the way to a cache if you’re in a tricky area? Surely with GPSr in hand we have got the tools to manage basic navigation? Even with an older GPSr you can still check the location your vehicle is parked at, write that in a notebook and then nav back to that location…. People get lost all the time, should we ban all tents in case people are camping and get lost?